As a woman, I’m never looking to tear down my fellow ladies. The world is hard enough for us all without dealing with competitive women or judgemental girls. But that’s why I find it important to hold one another accountable for our toxic behavior. Unfortunately, women are just as capable as men of being influenced by sexism, misogyny and entitlement. It may be more common for men to become aggressive or cruel towards women when they’re turned down for a date, but there are women out there too who will retaliate or become victims when a man doesn’t reciprocate her feelings. 

However, in my experience, it’s more common for women to take it out on another girl when a man is not interested. Becoming competitive and saying rude things about another women such as, “I’m prettier than her” or “What does he even see in her?” is not appropriate behavior. Boasting about how many people are in your DMs would surely not be appreciated if a man did the same thing. These are the kinds of “nice girls” that are featured on this list. They mean no harm, but they have to be educated on why their actions are toxic. 

I would like to point out that it’s sometimes hard to blame women for acting this way. Yes, plenty of women out there know how to actually be kind without feeling any sense of entitlement and how to treat men and women equally. But I can’t help but feel sorry for women who feel the need to boast about who is flirting with them or who are so insecure that they decide to put men or other women down as well. Girls are often taught that we have to be competitive and that we won’t be seen as valuable unless we’re beautiful. So when a woman puts all of her eggs in the basket of “If I’m beautiful, surely men will love me”, she doesn’t know how to react when she is inevitably disappointed.

Women who feel entitled to attention from men likely see relationships as very black and white. “If I do what a woman is ‘supposed’ to do, I deserve to have a man fall in love with me.” That’s a sad way to look at dating, and it’s certain to lead to disappointment. Women are susceptible to being influenced by misogyny as well. We may hear men make fun of women who look or act a certain way, and we may begin to emulate that behavior, as to fit in or impress men. Girls might also become bitter or jealous if they see a woman who doesn’t fit into the traditional mold succeeding in her life or her relationships. It must be sad to be a woman who compares herself to other girls; it sounds exhausting. 

This isn't the first time we've covered the Nice Girls subreddit here at Bored Panda (you can find the previous articles here and here), and lucky for us, the subreddit's moderator team has always been willing to have a conversation about their community its purpose. The last time we spoke with them was about a year ago, so I was curious if there had been any big updates to the group or major changes within this last year. "A certain extremely misandrist subreddit had to be addressed within in our rules," the mods told Bored Panda. "We had to take a no tolerance stance on this kind of hate speech. Hate speech and sexism are also against the Reddit TOS, and as we do not want our subreddit implicated negatively in anyway, this had to be addressed. We've had our member count continuously and steadily grow nice and slowly."

And when it comes to where these 'nice girls' comes from, the moderators shared, "Being a 'nice girl' stems from a mixture of a few factors; those being immaturity, jealousy, and a lack of experience." But they're doing everything they can with this platform to help educate women on their own internalized sexism and prevent them from being 'nice girls'. "We like to believe that female visitors to our subreddit have been pointed in the right direction," the mods shared.

We also asked if the moderators had any advice for women who don't realize they have been exhibiting toxic 'nice girl' behavior. "If you're on yet another guy and still jealous of those women who have settled down and moved on with their relationships, then maybe YOU need to take a hard look at yourself and see where you're going wrong and address your own issues instead of blaming the world."

When it comes to the goal of their community, the mods told Bored Panda, "Our goal with this platform is to mainly entertain those that visit our subreddit. Our secondary goal is to educate." And finally, they request that anyone who visits their subreddit be sure to read the rules first and foremost. They're there for a reason!

The term “nice girl” can actually hold a couple of different meanings. In the case of the Nice Girls subreddit, they explain that the group is “for the women who complain ‘guys are only interested in sluts.’ For women who complain that men are shallow for not dating overweight women, while also demanding that their man have washboard abs. For the women who hold others to the highest possible standard, but have no standards for themselves.” They also note that if the genders were swapped, these women would be classified as so-called “nice guys”. However, there is another type of nice girl that women tend to be distancing themselves from nowadays: the girl who is too nice.

Girls are often taught from a very young age to be nice and polite. “Nice girls don’t ____.” This teaches many girls to internalize their issues or anything that upsets them, as to avoid conflict. A nice girl wouldn’t complain about harassment at work or tell her uncle to stop commenting on her weight. A nice girl will be happy to be paid less than the men in her office because she should be glad to have a job at all. Being a “nice girl”, when that means adopting people pleasing tendencies and becoming docile, often leads to being taken advantage of and having a lack of passion or ambition. When women are taught to be so focused on everyone else and making sure they are comfortable, it’s a natural reaction to shrink. It’s not at all these nice girls’ fault for being this way; women are often called pushy, rude, aggressive or much stronger words for simply standing up for themselves or going against the grain. But it’s high time women stop feeling pressured to be “nice” and just relax into whoever they want to be.  

Some of the posts on this list imply that women are not responsible for their own behavior and that they are always the victims of another man or woman’s actions. Not only is this a completely false idea, it also perpetuates the idea that women are never responsible for their own accomplishments. Women already have a hard enough time being praised for their work, as we might hear rumors about what we must have done to get a job or that we only accomplished something because of our looks, so we should not be making it harder for ourselves by implying that we can’t take responsibility for anything. “If a guy doesn’t like me, there must be another girl. If I’m being mean to a man or another woman, they did something to make them deserve it. I only deserve the best, and I’m always the victim.” This is a dangerous and delusional mindset, and we should not allow our fellow women to think this way. It’s much more empowering to take responsibility and be active participants in our lives. 

Sadly, many of the posts on this list boil down to insecurities. We all know that if you’re actually a kind person, you don’t need to brag about it. It will be obvious to everyone around you. So when women brag about how wonderful they are, how beautiful they are, how all men would be lucky to have them and all women are jealous of them, it just makes me feel sorry for them. I hope that they can reach a place where they don’t feel the need to judge other women or compare themselves, but it doesn't typically happen overnight. It might take therapy and a lot of educating yourself to understand that being “nice” and pretty is not enough to deserve everything you want in life. Being genuinely kind, focusing on bettering yourself, caring for the people around you and not being fixated on what other people think can do wonders for all of us, men and women. 

Some of these “nice girls” exhibit behavior similar to “pick me” girls or “not like other girls” women. All of this behavior stems from internalized sexism, and none of it is healthy for women or men. Apoorva Phutela wrote an article for Feminism In India earlier this year exploring this idea, and she noted that one of the common ways this sexism manifests is through moral policing. “Independent and assertive women being labeled as ‘too loud’ and ‘too bossy’ by women who have conformed to patriarchal gender roles, reinforce sexist attitudes in the society,” Apoorva writes. “Instead of encouraging their daughters to be ambitious and independent, mothers are often seen asking them to ‘adjust’ and be ‘homely’ in order to sustain marriages.”

But it can be hard for these “nice girls” to deconstruct a lifetime of sexist teaching. “Internalized sexism is harder to recognize and dismantle because when the victims become the perpetrators of the same kind of oppression that they have endured, they become the agents of patriarchy hoping for some kind of reconciliation with their own trauma or validation from their male counterparts for repeating the same actions that traumatized them.” The women on this list don’t have an excuse for being cruel or hateful towards others, but when we understand where it stems from, we can work on correcting it and helping future generations avoid the same brainwashing.